Another question for Secretary Rumsfeld
Reader Laura Armstrong called my attention to a memo from Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness. Here is the text:
I never thought I would see Army officials trying to fill shortages of male combat soldiers by forcing young female soldiers, many of them mothers, into direct ground combat. Some short-sighted officials in the Pentagon, both uniformed and civilian, are trying to do just that. Since March of this year, CMR has successfully countered these efforts—writing to and meeting with high-level officials in the Pentagon. We discovered that one of the Army’s new “unit of action” land combat brigades was already operating in violation of current Defense Department regulations. In June we filed a formal request for the Army Inspector General to intervene, but the Army’s lack of a Secretary of the Army inhibited progress on that front.Each time we held the line, the same officials shifted their strategy, finding different ways to excuse what appears to be a determined effort to make up for shortages in male combat troops by forcing female soldiers into land combat. Never mind that this problem, to the extent that it exists, could have been avoided were it not for gender-based recruiting quotas.
I need your help to ask President Bush and members of Congress to intervene before all land combat units, including Special Operations Forces and the Marine Corps, are forced to shoulder social burdens that compromise missions and cost lives in direct ground combat.
CMR's link is here. And here is Mackubin Owens on the subject.
